19th September 2011, 12:13 PM
Ta for the reference. Yep I got some possible partial ring-gullies at Pig Hill too, but these were caused by medieval plough furrows and uneven truncation due to the slope of the site. I'd agree with Dino on the ring gullies not needing to be rings.
People don't always do things the same way. One persons drip gully may not look the same as anothers. Depends on the local conditions. And you have to account for peoples quirks (maddness). Wasn't the first phase of the main (biggest) roundhouse at Thorpe Thewles actually octagonal?
For the discussion on things in terminals see....
Heslop, D. H. (2008) Patterns of Quern Production, Acquisition and Deposition: A Corpus of Beehive Querns from Northern Yorkshire and Southern Durham Yorkshire Archaeological Society occasional paper no 5
But also......
Woodward, A. and Huges, G. (2007) ‘Deposits and doorways: patterns within the Iron Age settlement at Crick Covert Farm, Northamptonshire’ in Haselgrove, C. and Pope, R. (eds.), The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near Continent Oxbow
But in summary Heslop's data does include a large number of querns in terminals of stuff and intentionally burnt and broken querns. But equally lots that weren't and re-used or deposited elsewhere. He then goes off on several flights of fancy ignoring that the evidence doesn't point towards a single overriding 'ritual' of deposition.
Woodward and Huges is an assessment based on data for just a few sites, but gives a better picture of what may have been happening on those sites, as in a mixture of deposition processes or traditions.
'on a number of my sites all the querns were found in the terminal ends, nowhere else just in the terminal ends'
Hope you weren't only looking for querns in the terminals, they do definitely turn up elsewhere but the fragments are often chucked away as being stones (especially by students or inexperience diggers):face-stir:
As to their being no 'rubbish' in prehistoric Britain what about Skarra Brae? I suppose the inhabitants were 'ritually' chucking their rubbish out of the windows? :face-stir:
And I'm guessing shell middens are now ritual monuments?
People don't always do things the same way. One persons drip gully may not look the same as anothers. Depends on the local conditions. And you have to account for peoples quirks (maddness). Wasn't the first phase of the main (biggest) roundhouse at Thorpe Thewles actually octagonal?
For the discussion on things in terminals see....
Heslop, D. H. (2008) Patterns of Quern Production, Acquisition and Deposition: A Corpus of Beehive Querns from Northern Yorkshire and Southern Durham Yorkshire Archaeological Society occasional paper no 5
But also......
Woodward, A. and Huges, G. (2007) ‘Deposits and doorways: patterns within the Iron Age settlement at Crick Covert Farm, Northamptonshire’ in Haselgrove, C. and Pope, R. (eds.), The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the near Continent Oxbow
But in summary Heslop's data does include a large number of querns in terminals of stuff and intentionally burnt and broken querns. But equally lots that weren't and re-used or deposited elsewhere. He then goes off on several flights of fancy ignoring that the evidence doesn't point towards a single overriding 'ritual' of deposition.
Woodward and Huges is an assessment based on data for just a few sites, but gives a better picture of what may have been happening on those sites, as in a mixture of deposition processes or traditions.
'on a number of my sites all the querns were found in the terminal ends, nowhere else just in the terminal ends'
Hope you weren't only looking for querns in the terminals, they do definitely turn up elsewhere but the fragments are often chucked away as being stones (especially by students or inexperience diggers):face-stir:
As to their being no 'rubbish' in prehistoric Britain what about Skarra Brae? I suppose the inhabitants were 'ritually' chucking their rubbish out of the windows? :face-stir:
And I'm guessing shell middens are now ritual monuments?